I teach English and I write, mostly about horse racing, for the Blood-Horse, New York Breeder, the Saratogian, Hello Race Fans!, Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred, The Racing Biz, and the Brooklyn Heights Blog. My work has also appeared in the Daily Racing Form, Thoroughbred Times, the New York Daily News, and BelmontStakes.com. A former and erstwhile resident of Saratoga Springs, New York, I’ve lived in Brooklyn for more than a decade, and when I’m not teaching or writing, I’m watching the Rangers at the Garden, playing Scrabble, or rescuing cats.

For Stonestreet Farm, Memories Of One Oaks Victory And Hopes For Another

Rachel Alexandra with Comer and Banke at Stonestreet Farm. Photo courtesy of Stonestreet.

The Kentucky Derby is just about a week away, and for months, the sport has focused obsessively on the three-year-old male horses that will run at Churchill Downs on the first Saturday in May, in the event often referred to as the only horse race most Americans care about.

Lost in the hoopla can be the race that takes place the day before, the one for three-year-old fillies. The Kentucky Oaks will be run a week from today, on Friday, May 3, and in its 138-year history, it’s been won by such Hall of Famers as Cicada, Davona Dale, Dark Mirage, and Silverbulletday.

When the race goes off this year, its most impressive alumnus will be 80 miles east of Churchill Downs, on a farm in Lexington. Now seven years old, she will, if she’s lucky, get to go outside for a few hours, to graze in a pasture. She’ll be under near-constant surveillance, not because of her value and accomplishments, not because in 2009 she won the Kentucky Oaks, the first of five Grade 1 races she’d win en route to making history and being named the Horse of the Year.

Rachel Alexandra will be watched closely because a little more than two months ago, she was hospitalized after giving birth to her second foal; following surgery to repair a bruised colon, a procedure her owner Stonestreet Farm characterized as “long and technically demanding,” the champion made better-than-expected progress before undergoing a second surgical procedure on March 7 after she developed an abscess.

The healthiest horses are fragile creatures; injured horses are even more delicate, the tenuous equilibrium of their bodies easily thrown off. So even as encouraging reports came out weekly on the mare’s progress, those closest to her refused to offer a prognosis, knowing how quickly and seriously her condition could turn.

“Though her road toward recovery remains remarkable following abdominal surgery performed on February 13th,” wrote Stonestreet following the second procedure, referring to the first, major operation, “this is an important reminder that challenges remain.” A week later they added, “…last week’s procedure was a reminder of the many hurdles she can face along the way.”

Laminitis, a painful hoof disease, “is always a concern when we are dealing with a sick or stressed horse,” wrote Dr. Brett Woodie, one of Rachel Alexandra’s veterinarians at Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital, in an e-mail. The disease can develop when horses distribute their weight unequally among their four legs, which is common when they are distressed, in pain, or uncomfortable. While laminitis itself isn’t deadly, it’s so difficult to treat and so painful for horses that they are often euthanized when the disease progresses.

Among other possible complications Rachel Alexandra might face are abdominal adhesions, septic peritonitis, and infections of the surgical incision. Some, Woodie added, might not become issues until months after the surgery.

Still, it was hard not to feel optimistic when Stonestreet announced a month ago that Rachel Alexandra had left the hospital and returned home to the farm. The farm recently released pictures of her grazing in a paddock for the first time since her illness.

Going with Rachel Alexandra to Stonestreet was Brent Comer, an internal medicine clinician tech at Rood and Riddle taking on a new position as the farm’s medical care manager. “We brought her new best friend Brent with her,” said Barbara Banke, owner of Stonestreet Farm, last month. “He’s helping her adjust back to farm life and she’s doing really well there. We’re just happy to have her home.”

Banke was talking in the winner’s circle at Gulfstream Park, moments after another Stonestreet filly, Dreaming of Julia, had won the Gulfstream Oaks by nearly 22 lengths. Banke bred the filly and calls her a birthday present to herself; Dreaming of Julia is the gift that keeps on giving, having won four of six races, finishing second and third in the other two.

Dreaming of Julia was foaled in March 2010, a year before Stonestreet’s founder, Jess Jackson, passed away. Following his death, Banke, his widow, made the decision to keep the filly.

“I was a little depressed because Jess had passed on and we were deciding which horses to sell,” she said, “I said, ‘I really like this filly, so I’ll keep this one for our family,’ and I’m so happy I did.”

Stonestreet didn’t own Rachel Alexandra when she won the Kentucky Oaks; Jackson purchased her privately after that win for a reputed $5 million. Two weeks after her dazzling Oaks win, Jackson ran her in the Preakness Stakes against males. Beating the Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird, Rachel Alexandra became the first filly since 1924 to win the second leg of the Triple Crown.

Dreaming of Julia is among the serious contenders to wear the blanket of lilies that goes to the winner of the Kentucky Oaks. In a spring fraught with anxiety over the health of their champion, Banke and Stonestreet would love to see another of their fillies in the Oaks winner’s circle next Friday.

“It’s fabulous to have a strong horse going to the Kentucky Oaks,” said Banke. “It would be great to win it. We have one Oaks winner and we’d love another.”

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This is why the Jockey Club should immediately join every single other equine registry and begin to allow artificial insemination and embryo transfers. This mare will likely never be able to carry another foal but by allowing embryo transfers to recipient mares to carry the foals, she could produce for years to come. If they want rules limiting the number of foals produced each year per mare to one, fine, but at least allow that one to be produced.